strong, to
compose a system of equal law or general defence. Some voluntary respect
was yielded to age and valor; but each tribe or village existed as
a separate republic, and all must be persuaded where none could be
compelled. They fought on foot, almost naked, and except an unwieldy
shield, without any defensive armor; their weapons of offence were a
bow, a quiver of small poisoned arrows, and a long rope, which they
dexterously threw from a distance, and entangled their enemy in a
running noose. In the field, the Sclavonian infantry was dangerous
by their speed, agility, and hardiness: they swam, they dived, they
remained under water, drawing their breath through a hollow cane; and
a river or lake was often the scene of their unsuspected ambuscade. But
these were the achievements of spies or stragglers; the military art was
unknown to the Sclavonians; their name was obscure, and their conquests
were inglorious.

I have marked the faint and general outline of the Sclavonians and
Bulgarians, without attempting to define their intermediate boundaries,
which were not accurately known or respected by the Barbarians
themselves. Their importance was measured by their vicinity to the
empire; and the level country of Moldavia and Wallachia was occupied
by the Antes, a Sclavonian tribe, which swelled the titles of
Justinian with an epithet of conquest. Against the Antes he erected the
fortifications of the Lower Danube; and labored to secure the alliance
of a people seated in the direct channel of northern inundation, an
interval of two hundred miles between the mountains of Transylvania and
the Euxine Sea. But the Antes wanted power and inclination to stem the
fury of the torrent; and the light-armed Sclavonians, from a hundred
tribes, pursued with almost equal speed the footsteps of the Bulgarian
horse. The payment of one piece of gold for each soldier procured a safe
and easy retreat through the country of the Gepidae, who commanded the
passage of the Upper Danube. The hopes or fears of the Barbarians; their
intense union or discord; the accident of a frozen or shallow stream;
the prospect of harvest or vintage; the prosperity or distress of the
Romans; were the causes which produced the uniform repetition of annual
visits, tedious in the narrative, and destructive in the event. The same
year, and possibly the same month, in which Ravenna surrendered, was
marked by an invasion of the Huns or Bulgarians, so dreadful, that i